I heard them on the EWTN midnight Mass which would be 3/31/09, actually.
I was surprised at the length of the reading from Daniel. Aside from the story line, I was impressed by the guile of the people involved and the complex social relationships of that social group. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it is amazing that the social problem is recognizable to us in a different place and different cultural backdrop.
Due to the poor audio quality where I was listening, I didn’t catch all the detail of the reading, probably just the main upshot of the story.
The significance of the Scribes being there is that they were the literalists about scripture, and would be those most earnestly seeking to put the woman to death by stoning. The Pharisees were the liberal group, looking at the Mosaic commandments with more discretion would generally try to avoid the death sentence, if there were any mitigating circumstances at all.
For example, someplace there is a commandment that children should not curse their parents, under penalty of death. The Pharisees watered that down to capital punishment only if the children had used the most holy name of the Divine, the YHWH, tetregrammaton. That would be almost impossible, as the actual pronunciation of the
Divine name was forgotten, which would make the law not meaningless, but difficult to prosecute, you might say.
Despite their intentions, the Pharisees could be more easily turned away, with a penetrating answer, as Jesus has given them. When Jesus asks which of them is without sin, it would make most sense if He were referring to their commission of adultery as well.That might turn the crowd away faster than their guilt over just any other sin.
The mystery is what Jesus was writing in the dirt. Dirt has that significance that Adam is described as having been formed from the earth, and that the earth (dust, ashes) is the fate of all mankind. And, His posture on the ground is what you would imagine from the description of God making Adam from the earth, so this give Jesus symbollically a great impression.
The meaning of Jesus’ name has been given as “He saves” or as “God is salvation”.
I’ve never heard a convincing argument for what Jesus was writing on the ground or why that itself may have turned the men away.
